Centipede

Centipede

"Heavy combat mechanoids that glide on dozens of tiny legs. Their heavy armor and firepower makes them very effective against bunched-up static defenders. They are somewhat vulnerable to mobile hit-and-run tactics."

Description

Centipedes are mechanoids which do not eat, cannot be tamed or trained, and are always hostile to the colony. They can be found sealed in ancient ruins in all biomes, spawn inside mountains or outside on the landscape. They may also raid the player's base through events and can also be found in most poison ships and psychic ships. They will target doors, walls, base production tables and furniture.

Centipedes are often supported by scythers, though they usually outpace the centipedes by a great margin and won't stop to wait for them.

Combat

Centipedes are slow-moving and extremely resistant to sharp damage, which includes bullets, so they require many shots to take down with guns. Centipedes may spawn equipped with the minigun, heavy charge blaster, inferno cannon, or with no weapon at all. They also have strong resistance against deadfall traps but still vulnerable to have their head cut off or their sight sensors destroyed.

Centipedes are good at crowd control, but cannot take down single or widely scattered targets, especially when equipped with miniguns or heavy charge blasters, both of which has forced miss radii. One effective way of distracting fire from them (if they are not equipped with the inferno cannon or supported by scythers) is to simply let a colonist with a shield belt stand in front of other colonists; the centipedes will focus fire on the shielded colonist while being completely unable to hit it, allowing your other colonists to fire at the centipedes without getting hurt.

Downed centipedes can either be manually killed or shut down by adding a medical bill. Dead centipedes may be disassembled at the machining table for 80, 50, and 2, though these values are affected by mechanoid disassembly efficiency as well as missing parts on the centipede.

Biology

Centipedes consist entirely of mechanical parts, and are mostly composed of very large 'rings' that make their appearance similar to that of a real-life centipede. Despite being somewhat sluggish (in movement and appearance), they are immensely durable and can absorb a significant amount of fire before they are killed or even disabled.

Centipedes have six body rings, several sensors for hearing, sight, and smell, and an artificial brain that drives them. Interestingly enough, they lack any sort of communication parts and always spawn with their communication indicated as 'None', or no ability to. The only other external body part a centipede has other than its rings is its head, making it very difficult to actually kill a centipede. The only operation that can be performed on centipedes is the "Shut Down" function. This has no effect aside from shutting down Mechanoids that are already incapacitated. This operation can only be performed by a colonist that is assigned as a Repairer. This provides a helpful alternative to simply shooting incapacitated mechanoids, leaving your colonists free to help with the inevitable cleanup after a mechanoid raid.

Diet

Centipedes are machines, and machines don't need to eat - but they do need some source of power.

Currently, it is unknown what power source or other source of energy the Centipede uses.

Combat

Centipedes are mechanized heavy siege units, and as such are generally equipped with either a Minigun, Inferno Cannon, or Heavy Charge Blaster on semi-rare occasions, but are also able to engage in melee combat with colonists.

Their melee attack is the highest damaging melee attack in the game, not counting explosives or quality melee weapons such as high-quality longswords. Getting in close is not recommended, unless you absolutely have to interrupt their firing sequence to save vital assets from death or destruction. Even then, it is advised to wear the heaviest armor possible to block blunt-type damage.

Body Parts (Summary)

Centipedes are actually very simplistic and robust in design, with not that many parts overall. Their obvious weakness is that they're able to be severed in two, rapidly reducing their ability to move (which may eventually incapacitate them).

Note: Centipedes have a health scale of 2.0 - meaning their parts have twice the health of body parts listed in the files.

Scyther

Scyther

"Fast, spindly, human-sized combat mechanoids. They usually carry one primary ranged weapon, and their bodies are adorned with two articulated blades to make them deadly in melee combat. They don't use cover. Best handled by concentrated, overwhelming force."

Scythers are a type of fast-moving mechanoid with strong melee skills that can be found sealed in ancient ruins in all biomes, either spawned inside mountains or outside on the landscape. They may also raid the player's base through a random raid-type event and can also be found in most poison ships and psychic ships.

Scythers are often supported by centipedes, though they outrun them by a huge margin, and will not stop to let them catch up.

Like other mechanoids, scythers are sentient machine-like creatures which do not need to eat, cannot be tamed or trained, and are always hostile to the colony. Scythers have a moderate resistance to sharp damage and a small resistance to blunt damage combined with an average health scale, making them trivial to disable at range with sufficient firepower. If you don't have very good long range firepower, it's better to try and get them into close quarters ranged combat due to their limited durability and because their superior long range firepower will be redundant at this point. Scythers are vulnerable to deadfall traps, with only a few hits required to kill them.

Scythers will always spawn equipped with the charge lance and will generally prefer to engage at range over melee. However, they are horrifyingly effective at melee, being the enemy with the highest melee DPS in game, surpassing that of the Thrumbo.

Downed scythers can be salvaged through a medical operation to obtain their blades so long as they are intact after battle. Shutting down a scyther will negate the opportunity to remove their parts. They can either be killed by directing a colonist to fire/melee it to death, or shut down by adding a medical bill. Dead scythers may be disassembled at the machining table for 40, 25, and 1, though these values are affected by mechanoid disassembly efficiency.

Graphs

The below graph assumes an uninjured scyther using a Normal charge lance. Values may differ as scythers will spawn with charge lances of differing quality.

Trivia

Scythers have a unique slashing sound when they use their melee attacks.

Biology

Scythers, although mechanical and not very human-looking, are actually almost the same in structure as a typical human (minus the organs). However, they're more durable than humans, don't feel pain and do not fear for their life - they don't even use cover. This can make them very dangerous to fight against when under-armed.

They have two arms, run on two legs, and (surprisingly) have a neck and make vocal communication. Why a machine would use standard human-like air-based vocalization is unknown at this time - especially when Centipedes are completely unable to manually communicate. Scythers have the same "Shut Down" function as centipedes.

Diet

Much like Centipedes, it's unknown what exactly drives a Scyther, but it's likely it would be similar to whatever powers the Centipede.

Combat

Scythers are usually seen carrying their charge lance into battle, but are able to engage in melee.

Body Parts (Detailed)

Modification bills are performed by colonists assigned to Crafting.

Artificial Brain

Required for overall function and function of any Mechanoid. Without this, a Mechanoid is simply an empty husk of mechanical parts. Can be deactivated if incapacitated, causes same effect as euthanizing

Blades

Scyther blades can be surgically removed from a scyther if they're incapacitated.

Body Rings

Everything is built off of the Centipede's first body ring - the head, and second body ring are connected to the first ring, while the rest of the rings chain off from there (second ring connected to third, third connected to fourth, etc).

Body rings enable the Centipede to move and work, as there are many tiny, tiny legs that are connected to the body rings (not listed under body parts).

Sensors

Sight sensors for seeing, hearing sensors for hearing, and smell sensors for smell.

It's worth noting that smell is not yet implemented in the game, so destroying a smelling sensor doesn't harm a Mechanoid overall since they do not feel pain.

References

↑ 2.02.1Coverage determines the chance to hit this body part. It is dependent on which group the body part is part of, so, for example, you can't shoot someone in the toe and hit them in the brain.

Trivia

Although all mechanoid-only weapons are 'Spacer' in terms of tech level; the hidden mechanoid faction itself is actually 'Ultra' tech level - one above spacer, and the second highest tech level in the game, below 'Transcendent'.